As any parent of a teenager knows, simply telling young people not to do something is a less-than-effective way to discourage unwanted behaviours. That can apply to drinking, smoking and, given how connected teenagers are these days, sexting.

It’s not surprising that teens would explore their sexuality, but the social consequences of sexting arise when young people are pressured into participating, or when images intended for a particular person are shared. Recent cases in Canada, including the suicides of Amanda Todd and Rehtaeh Parsons, are tragic examples of how illicit images, consensual or not, can take their toll on young people.

A recent survey from MediaSmarts found that one in 10 Canadian students in grades seven through eleven had sent a sext — sexually-charged nude or partially-nude photos — of themselves. Another one in four had received a sext and boys were twice as likely to be sent one as girls. A 2010 survey of American teens found that 38 per cent of girls and 39 per cent of boys had a sext shared for them that was meant for someone else.

“These images are being shared, they’re being posted online and they’re feeling shamed and don’t know how to cope with it,” Joseph Versace, a programmer with the Ontario Provincial Police, told Canada.com.

I’m realistic about this. This isn’t going to be the be all end all that stops sexting.

Knowing that telling kids to simply stop is not enough, Versace and the OPP’s Child Sexual Exploitation Unit has created an app called “Send This Instead,” that as the name suggests gives teens another option for responding to sexting requests.

The app contains a gallery of sassy response images with phrases like “Right now is no good. How’s never?” and “I can’t send you nude photos, but I’ll forward this to my dad and you can try asking him for some.” The idea is that young people who are feeling pressured into sending nude photos when they don’t want to can diffuse the situation with a touch of humour.

The OPP reached out to comedians for the content of the “digital postcards.” Some may elicit a guffaw but others perhaps miss the mark, such as one that references Brad Pitt, who is now 50 years old and probably doesn’t elicit fangirl screams from teens anymore.

Another uses the word “Eskimoing,” which is a problematic word because it has been used to pejoratively describe Inuit people.

The app also contains resources for kids who feel they’ve been exploited or harassed and information on how to request the removal of images from popular social media websites. The idea came about after realizing that simply telling kids “no” without giving them another strategy wasn’t working.

“I’m realistic about this. This isn’t going to be the be all end all that stops sexting,” said Scott Naylor of the OPP’s Child Sexual Exploitation. Rather, Naylor said they’re putting this out there in the hopes that it could stop even just one young woman from making a decision she can’t take back.

“If she sends this instead and it buys her that one opportunity to perhaps think about it, then our job’s complete. We’ve done what we need to do,” said Naylor.

The phrasing and default pink colour scheme suggests teen girls are the primary target of Send This Instead, and Naylor said it is primarily these girls who are pressured by their male peers to engage in sexting.

There’s ways to do things where you don’t have to be this sneaky, slimy dude

But what about those young men applying that pressure and surreptitiously sharing the images? The app gives young people a tool for rebuffing unwanted requests but it doesn’t address the underlying reasons why peer-to-peer exploitation is happening in the first place.

“It’s part of this I need to be this dominant, toxic guy get to their attention. It’s not, at the end of the day, what most young men want to be like but they know that’s just kind of the rules,” said Jeff Perara, the Community Engagement Manager for the White Ribbon Campaign, which works to end violence against women by educating men and boys about healthy masculinity.

Perera said said teenage boys may be engaging in this behaviour because they haven’t been taught how to interact with girls in a positive, friendly way.

“There’s ways to do things where you don’t have to be this sneaky, slimy dude.”

Canada.com showed the Send This Instead app to the White Ribbon Campaign’s Toronto team. Although they agreed that education for boys was a key part of the puzzle for tackling sexting, there was praise for the OPP decision to try something new.

“You can see that they were trying to be proactive and kind of take an approach that’s not just ‘no means no’ or ‘don’t do this,’ they’re trying to give another solution,” said Shai Kohen, a project manager. “They’re trying to be a little bit more kid-friendly. I can appreciate that.”